Curiously understated: Porthminster Kitchen reviewed

Porthminster Kitchen sits above Warren’s Bakery on St Ives Harbour, like a paradigm of the British class system in food. This happens everywhere, but it is particularly pronounced in St Ives, which is unlucky enough to be a site of pilgrimage for Virginia Woolf addicts – her childhood holiday home sits above the town, her lighthouse is on the bay – and other feckless Londoners. But the balance is long lost. Since the Tate Gallery arrived in 1993, Cornish natives, who used to live alongside artists – Barbara Hepworth, Patrick Heron – have left the old town (‘downalong’). It is now a wonky Disneyland of holiday cottages with stupid names (‘Sea song’ and, more accurately, ‘Adrift’) and nautical-themed decor, which presumably exists to please the ghosts of long-dead fishermen. Or maybe people just lack imagination. It’s possible.

It’s also possible to navigate the wharf now that the holidays are over.